Mike Spector's Blog

The original purpose of this blog was to share information about AECT (Association for Educational Communications and Technology - see http://www.aect.org) and solicit comments and feedback about the directions and activities of AECT. Now I am posting things that strike me as worthy of attention and comment. You can send me private comments at jmspector007@gmail.com or post comments to the blog.

Saturday, January 13, 2018

I am thinking about a new aphorism to guide my thoughts
and actions. It pertains to seeking ideas and advice from others.

It goes like
this: Ask a novice and you are likely to get one answer that
looks like one of these: “I don’t know,” I’m not sure,” or “Maybe X” [I omitted
the “I know not what” part for those not familiar with John Locke’s notion of
substance].

Ask an expert and you are likely to get at least two
answers that look something like these: “It could be X or it could be Y,” and “Research
shows different results in different situations” and “In this case Z might be best
– give it your best shot.”

Ask a world-class scholar (assuming you can find a
living one) and you are likely to get at least three answers which resemble something like the following: “Well, that is an interesting question which
deserves some scrutiny; I am familiar with a case somewhat like this in which X
was tried with somewhat mixed results; in a different situation Y seemed to
work but it may not be appropriate in this case; on the other hand, you might consider Z; what do you think?”

Thursday, December 28, 2017

As New Year approaches, I am thinking about New Year’s
resolutions. Most of those I have made in the past have gone unattained,
ranging from losing weight to being a better husband and father. This year, one
notion seems stuck in my mind – namely, bringing out the best in others. That
is advice from my father, the rabbi, as he was explaining to me as an
adolescent what it meant to be a rabbi. I have paraphrased his advice as being
a rabbi was to be a teacher - someone who is the voice that encourages, the
ear that listens, the eye that reflects, the hand that guides, the face that
does not turn away. That is how he thought about bringing out the best in
others. Ironically, as he was trying to help me decide to become a rabbi, I was
becoming convinced that I could not live up to those demands as so well
exemplified in his life.

Even more ironic is the fact that I became a teacher
instead of becoming a rabbi. And now, towards the end of that career, I am
wondering to what extent I have met his criteria for being a teacher. My
conclusion is that I have fallen short, so I am considering adopting the New
Year’s resolution of bringing out the best in others.

Given my training, I am also wondering what bringing
out the best in others entails. What comes to mind first is the idea of being
the coach of an athletic team. The coach is trying to bring out the best in
team members. Why? To have a winning season? So that team members will feel
good about having done their best? So that team members will improve and do
even better next year? As I am not an athlete and have not been coached, I
really do not know. I do recall a high school boy who, as a junior lifesaver,
coached a blind and deaf child in swimming, however. The goal was to give the
child an enjoyable summer. The child had a different goal, however. He wanted
to learn to swim, and the boy’s coach decided to support that goal, which was
attained much to the surprise of the parents and the senior lifeguards. That
incident leaves me thinking that what is best for someone else is best left to
that person’s determination.

It seems to me that too many people think they know
what is best for someone else in terms of a career choice, or a religious
choice, or a place to live, or a job, or a partner, and so on. One of my
mentors in computer science told me that he did not know the religion of his
daughter who had just married. He said that he left such choices to his
children and purposefully chose not to interfere or even influence them one way or
another. I tried to follow his guidance but found myself unable to follow
through as well as he had done. Over the years, I discovered that my own
children often chose to do the opposite of what I had recommended even though I
usually only offered advice when asked.

I remember my father telling my sister when she was
about to ask a personal question that she should not ask if she was not willing to
hear the answer. She asked anyway and he told her the standard orthodox answer
about piercing parts of one’s body. He later eased up somewhat and allowed her
to have her ears pierced. He never turned away from his children or his wife of
so many years.

So, how do I bring out the best in others when I do
not know what is best for someone else? Leave it up to that person to say what
is best for him or her? There is a problem with that approach as well. In
thinking about my own case, I have often thought something was best for me when
it turned out not to be the case. Then there is Nietzsche’s criticism of
Socrates in Twilight of the Idols –
namely that Socrates claimed to know the value of life, of his own life, but
that Socrates failed to realize that one is not in a position to judge one’s
own life as that involves an inescapable bias. In addition, one can go as far
back as Plato to find the notion that acting badly (i.e., not doing what is best
for oneself, in Plato’s terms) is a result of ignorance or lack of
understanding what is truly good. Moreover, one can find emphasis on doing what
is good or what is right in nearly all religions, including Buddhism ,
Christianity, Confucionism, Islam, Judaism. I am particularly fond of Rabbi
Hillel’s formulation – “If I am not for myself,
who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?”
I like the balance between oneself and others in Hillel’s formulation. I like
the notion that by acting one way or another one is becoming more of one kind
of person and less of a different kind of person.

That last thought led me to Bouwsma’s note in one of
his unpublished journals – “surely your life will show what you think about
yourself.” Bouwsma was writing about Socrates in that entry and he considered
Socrates as someone who talked highly and acted accordingly leaving most others in
one of the remaining categories (talking low but acting well – quite rare; talking
and acting low – as in too many people in high political positions; talking
well but acting low – unfortunately not rare and the category in which Socrates
regarded so many Athenians). I know I have mixed up the labels – high and low,
well and badly – but perhaps the idea is still clear.

Where does that leave me? Well, I am still wondering how I
will determine how to bring out the best in others. Perhaps the most I can do
is ask another person if he or she believes that this or another course of action is what is best for him or her
and others involved. Or I might ask what kind of person someone who does this or that
becomes. Or, more innocently, I could ask what other options are possible and
what that person is assuming. Well, I can ask but I should not turn away.

Monday, November 13, 2017

I shared the following remarks at the 2017 AECT leaership luncheon. I was embarrassed at the various honors bestowed me at AECT 2017, and I could have mentioned many others who have done much more than me to bring out the best in others, including among others who helped bring out some of the best in me: Bob Gagné, Dave Merrill, Bob Tennyson, Dave Jonassen, Norbert Seel, Pak Atwi Suparman, Ibu Tian Belwati, Leo Yam, Youqun Ren, Joost Lowyck, Pål Davidsen, Scott Newcomb, Walt Davis, Ed Allaire, Stuart Spicker, O. K. Bouwsma, Phil Harris, Barbara Lockee, Bob Doyle, and so many others. So many others.
===========

AECT
2017 - Notes for luncheon - J. Michael Spector

Five Guiding Principles for AECT
Leaders (IPOCR – helps to have an unpronounceable acronym)

1.Inclusion – To ensure sustainable growth and
remain relevant, the principle of inclusion involves welcoming a diverse group
of people and broadening membership to include all those associated or
concerned with improving learning, instruction and performance; this includes
academics, practitioners, researchers, developers, policy makers, parents, students,
community leaders, industry leaders, technology innovators, and those left
behind on the side of the information superhighway.

2.Pragmatism – To remain grounded in the
effective use of technology in support of learning and instruction, it is
important to prioritize evidence over advocacy and to ensure that productive
impact on learning and instruction guides efforts.

3.Openness – Communication among members and
association leaders needs to be open to all in a fluid, two-way manner - listening
and responding and respecting multiple divergent perspectives.

4.Collaboration – Fostering effective
collaboration among members and with schools, universities and other
associations should be regular and ongoing.

5.Research – AECT members have a reputation
for developing and publishing excellent research; this principle is aimed at
promoting research that builds effective theories, that guides effective
practice, and that informs progressive and productive policies.

Five Ideas to Move the Field Forward
(LLECH – careful not to let your imagination run wild)

To be
honest, my ideas are not nearly as insightful as those of a few of my mentors:

1.Learning (thanks go to Robert M. Gagné) –
the mission and our guiding purpose is to help people learn – all people, young
and old, all kinds of things, in and out of school, wherever they happen to be
or whoever they want to become or whatever they want to understand. The goal is
not to advance one’s career.

2.Limitations (thanks go to Oets Kolk Bouwsma) –
learning and education are complex enterprises and may not conform to one’s
expectations or the limits of one’s imagination; simple or swift solutions to
complex problems are seldom effective.

3.Earthbound (thanks go to M. David Merrill) –people learn what theydo; telling is not adequate to support
learning (except in the form of formative feedback) – tell, ask, show, do! Are
you providing timely and informative and constructive feedback to your
learners?

4.Change (thanks go to Robert A. Zimmerman)
– the future is uncertain and may be quite different from what one imagines;
how will you change? Can you make a difference in support of learning and
instruction? I have tried but claim no significant success. “May you have a
strong foundation when the winds of changes shift.”

5.Humanity (thanks go to Rabbi Joseph Spector)
– people have two remarkable abilities – namely, the ability to create internal
representations of the things they experience that are new or puzzling and the
ability to talk to others about those representations (mental models) which are
not directly observable. My father, often said that we have a responsibility to
bring out the best in people. The best is sometimes buried deep inside those
internal representations. What can be learned from the remarkable interior life
of such persons as Franz Jäggerstätter (see Gordon Zahn’s In Solitary Witness - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_J%C3%A4gerst%C3%A4tter).

I close with a remark about becoming a lifelong
learner. When does it occur – becoming a lifelong learner? Late in life or
early in life? Why does it occur – to be able to stay employed and find a good
job or ??? Is becoming a lifelong learner about becoming famous or finding
gainful employment? Becoming a lifelong learner is about becoming a lover of learning. And that love most
typically begins early in one’s upbringing. But it takes time and requires
nurturing … our job according to Gagné is to help people learn … my minor
modification to that advice is this: our job is to help people become lovers of
learning. This does not mean telling someone what to learn or why they should
learn something. It involves supporting learners in becoming reflective,
insightful, inquisitive beings – i.e., in becoming more human.

Saturday, November 4, 2017

I wrote this in 2006 for my doctoral students at Syracuse University and just found it while unpacking after my move to Round Rock. I had not remembered having this basic thought so long ago.

=======================

What is it that makes possible the progressive development
of knowledge and understanding? This is a complex question since it presumes
that there indeed exists something legitimately called the progressive
development of knowledge. I admit to starting out with such an assumption. I
want to explore some principles or basic ideas that seem relevant to an account
of the progressive development of knowledge. Without these ideas, it is not
clear, at least to me, how to account for human knowledge and understanding.
These seven basic ideas are:

1.Humans
are not born knowing everything that there is to know. As obvious as this might
seem, there have been people who rejected this most basic idea (see Plato’s
discussion of anamnesis in The Meno and
The Phaedo, for example).

2.Knowledge
refers to widely held and exceptionally well-established beliefs to which
people are generally warranted in attaching their very highest levels of
confidence. Statements that are likely candidates in this category include:
‘there is a constant ratio between the circumference and the diameter of a
circle’ and ‘the speed of sound varies depending on the medium through which it
is traveling’.

3.We
hold many other beliefs that can also be formulated as statements. We might generally
attach less confidence to these other beliefs, but these beliefs nevertheless
help us build up our knowledge of our surroundings and experiences. Statements
that are likely candidates in this category include: ‘experienced statisticians
provide reliable statistical analyses’ and ‘historical documents reliably
represent facts and events’. For a very nice discussion of how these beliefs
are intertwined see The Web of Belief by
Quine and Ullian.

4.Asking
a question involves formulating a particular grammatical structure that
typically ends with a question mark if it happens to be formulated on paper or
with a rising tone of voice when formulated orally in English. Questions might
begin with a word that implies that a question follows (e.g., ‘how’, ‘what’,
‘who’, ‘when’, ‘where’, ‘why’, ‘whether’), or one can transform a declarative
statement into a question without using a question word. A particular rule in
English guides the transformation of a statement into a question: put the verb
first and place a question mark at the end. For example, one can transform the
statement ‘There is a constant ratio between the circumference and the diameter
of a circle.’ into this question: ‘Is there a constant ratio between the
circumference and the diameter of a circle?’ Moreover, one may ask that
question without knowing the answer, although there is some evidence that this
piece of knowledge dates back to biblical times (Kings I, 7, 23) and ancient Egypt (the Rhind Papyrus dated about 1650 BCE). What is old knowledge for some
may become new knowledge for others. One can formulate a question without being
concerned with the answer, however. For example, someone might reply in the
course of a conversation, “Is that any business of yours?” The elements of a
question are in place – verb comes first, question mark comes last. But there
is no search for an answer in this case. Rather, this apparent question may be
used to terminate any further inquiry. Beware rhetorical questions – they do
not contribute to the progressive development of knowledge.

5.Having
a question involves a search for an answer. The person who asks about the ratio
between the circumference and diameter might ask without knowing that there is in
fact a constant ration. This person might then engage in some physical
experiments and measurements and discover, much like the ancient Egyptians,
that there did seem to be a constant ratio regardless of how large or how small
the circle was. Such a person might then go on to prove, in the spirit of
Archimedes, that the results obtained empirically were mathematically correct.
Having arrived at the knowledge that the ratio between the circumference and
diameter of a circle is constant, our budding mathematician might go on to
wonder whether or not the sequence of numbers in the expansion of that constant
ever repeated. One should set aside a fair amount of time for such an
enterprise. In any case, having a question implies that one does not know the
answer and is willing to engage in a search for an answer or for possible
alternative answers. We ought to have
more questions.

6.The
logic of having questions can be generally represented as follows:

a.First,
one admits to not knowing or understanding X but wanting to know or understand
X, where X represents some apparently non-obvious state of affairs of
phenomenon. This simply means that one does not engage in a search for the
obvious or for what is already accepted as known. One starts from a position of
humility (‘I do not know’) and optimism (‘I can understand this if I
make an effort’).

b.Next,
one begins to generate explanations and gathers evidence. This may be difficult
in those cases where one has very little idea as to the nature of what one is
seeking. A search, after all, is a search for what one does not have – in this
case we are talking about looking for knowledge and understanding. There is a
paradox of sorts connected with the fact that one is searching for an unknown X
– if the item being sought is totally unknown in every respect, it is difficult
to imagine how the search could be successfully resolved. The way around this
apparent paradox is to simply acknowledge the situation that gave rise to the
search, which presumably involved some things that one accepted, other things
that required explanation, and some notion of what an adequate explanation
would be like. For example, suppose that I am seeking to understand why sound
seems to travel faster in water than in air. I might gather some evidence first
to confirm my point of departure – that sound does indeed travel faster in
water than in air. I might gather additional data points, at differing depths
and altitudes and formulate an initial hypothesis that density appears to play
a role (water being more dense than air, air being less dense at higher
altitudes, and salt water being more dense than fresh water). I might even be
sufficiently clever to test this initial hypothesis that the density of the
medium is relevant to the speed of sound by checking to see if sounds travels even
faster through a solid object such as a piece of metal or how fast sound
travels in a vacuum (not very fast). While these further tests and observations
may confirm the initial hypothesis, one ought not abandon one’s initial
humility too readily – the hypothesis that the speed of sound through a medium
is directly and closely correlated with the density of that medium could still
be mistaken. Indeed, one might happen to observe that sound does not seem to
travel very fast through hydrogen in comparison with nitrogen, even though
nitrogen is more dense than hydrogen. Factors other than density must be added
to the hypothesis to account for such additional observations – for example,
the elasticity of the medium may well be relevant to the propagation of sound
waves through that medium.

c.Having
a question, then, is often a process of iterative refinement and often involves
a search for a satisfactory answer – one that may serve a short-term purpose
(explain a difference between the observed speed of sound in air and water) –
but the process may continue. This is how a body of knowledge is built up.
Maintaining a sense of humility (‘I do not fully understand this phenomenon
yet’) is just as important as maintaining a sense of optimism (‘I can
understand this phenomenon better if I continue my investigations’).

7.Not
all beliefs are like this. Some beliefs are withheld from the scrutiny of such
investigative cycles for various reasons. It is perhaps worthwhile to
distinguish those beliefs that we are willing to subject to further
investigation – and by implication willing to admit may be false or misleading
or in need for refinement – from those that we wish to exclude, for whatever
reasons, from such inquiry and refinement. What beliefs do we withhold from
scrutiny and why? This may be a question worth investigating. It is likely that
different people will admit to withholding different beliefs and for different
reasons. Consider the statement ‘there is intelligent life outside our solar
system’ as a candidate. One person may decide to withhold it from scrutiny
because it is simply too difficult to investigate. Another may decide to
withhold it because it conflicts with other beliefs that person has accepted,
some of which might also be withheld from the process of iterative scrutiny.
Still others may decide that it is worth investigating and not withhold it from
scrutiny (see Carl Sagan’s Cosmos,
for example).

As an additional
example, imagine that you are backpacking with a friend in the Rocky Mountains
and happen across a rock which appears to contain a fossil of a creature you do
not recognize (see Gould’s Wonderful Life).
You happen to be very knowledgeable about geology, paleontology, and zoology.
Neither you nor your friend can explain the fossil. You speculate that the
fossil may represent a species that no longer exists, one that died out
millions of years ago. Your friend may object, perhaps on religious grounds. In
this case, one of you may decide to investigate further, and one may decide to
abandon any search for an explanation. At this point, the dialogue may end in
amicable disengagement – hopefully it does not degenerate into brow and breast
beating or worse. It is important in such cases to distinguish a search for an
explanation, which involves gathering additional evidence and a willingness to
abandon initial hypotheses explaining the phenomenon in question, from a search
for reasons to adopt one explanation or another. Gathering reasons,
constructing arguments, and developing positions of advocacy for one position
or another should not be confused with conducting searches and making
empirically grounded inquiries (see Sextus Empiricus’ Against the Logicians). Yes, I admit to having been trained as a
logician. People do engage in both kinds of enterprises – inquiry and
rationalization. This seventh idea is about why and how we ought to avoid
confusing these two different kinds of cognitive enterprise. And on this
seventh point, I shall rest … until I trip over a butterfly or find another
interesting question.

Tuesday, October 10, 2017

I have been thinking a lot about this
topic for almost a year already, and I remain about as confused as I was when I
first started thinking about it. My habit when trying to understand a puzzling
statement or remark is to first look at the form of the statement. The original
statement was in the form of an imperative: “Make America great again.” An
imperative implies that there is something that one can do and probably should
do or not do, as the case may be. Common examples include (a) “Say something
nice to her”, or (d) Don’t touch the stove – it’s hot.” Imperatives are common
and often easily understood. They often bring about a desired outcome. With
regard to the subject imperative, I am wondering what I should do and what the
desired outcome would be – and also how the extent to which the desired outcome
is achieved should be determined. I believe that at one point, the subject
imperative could be interpreted as simply “Vote for me,” in which case I did
not comply (the second time I have voted for the person who got the most votes
but was not elected). I supposed at that time, the desired outcome was being
elected, which did happen. However, if the desired outcome was gaining the most
votes, then the outcome was not achieved.

In any case, the subject imperative can
no longer be interpreted so simply as a request to vote in a particular way.
Perhaps that was not the original intent. I am not good at reading minds,
especially those that are filled with inconsistencies and invectives. Hush my
mouth … or smash my fingers, as I am only using a keyboard at present. Still, I
wonder about the form of the imperative since it implies there is something I
can or should do in response to some situation. It just is not at all clear to
me what I can or should be doing, other than writing this note to try and
figure that out.

Then I focus on the word added at the
end of the subject imperative – namely ‘again’. That might give me some
direction in resolving my wonder. When was America great? During or after the
revolutionary war? During or after the civil war? World War I? World War II?
Oops. Perhaps the history of things should not be couched in terms of wars,
although wars seem to permeate the history of nearly every country or region of
the world. When was America great? Perhaps during the industrial revolution in
the 1800s and early 1900s when so many inventions changed society and resulted
in one of the wealthiest nations in the world. See the Smithsonian Institution
Museum of American History for more on that interpretation - http://americanhistory.si.edu/.
Other events might also be cited, such as landing on the moon (see https://www.nasa.gov/content/nasas-45th-anniversary-celebration-of-the-apollo-11-moon-landing)
or the Marshall Plan after WW II (see http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/marshall-plan)
or the civil rights act of 1964 (see https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/civil-rights-act)
or other such things that the reader can add to a list of events and periods
and activities in American history about which one might take pride. I suggest
focusing on small and local events as well as larger ones to keep a dialogue on
this subject active and meaningful.

Well, I took a side trip down history lane … my brother, the
historian, would be proud, perhaps. Now I turn to memory lane. When do I, in my
own life of 72 years, believe that America was great? Challenging oneself is
another habit I developed late in life after having made too many arrogant
missteps. Being older than dirt with a poor memory has left me with just a few
things I can cite. One was attending the swearing-in ceremony of an ex-wife
upon her becoming a naturalized American citizen. That was a moving occasion
with so many people from so many places becoming American citizens. That was an
inspiring ceremony and made me feel proud to be an American welcoming so many
others to this country. I recall the words of Emma Lazarus on the Statue of
Liberty: “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses
yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming
shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me: I lift my
lamp beside the golden door.” The more than 100 people welcomed as US citizens
that day in Atlanta were not tired or poor … they were hard working people who
wanted to enjoy life and contribute in their own ways to American society. I
listened to their conversations with their families while there – perhaps that
was the time I felt most proud to be an American.

One other instance of when I thought America was
great involved a letter I received from Albert Gore Senior when he was on the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee in reply to one that I wrote to him
indicating my negative feelings about the Vietnam conflict and American
leadership in the world in general. He replied that I should be patient and not
judge the country by one issue or incident and that there were and will continue
to be many things about America in which I could take pride. That voice of
optimism was also inspiring to me and perhaps gave me the strength to work for
the Department of Defense in later years after what I regarded as a disastrous
experience as an intelligence officer in earlier years.

Yes, there have been times when I thought
America was great. I am guessing that most Americans can cite such times, and
probably many non-Americans can as well, with the exception of folks such as
the leaders of Iran, North Korea, the Philippines, Russia or Turkey, among
others. There have been good times in America and there have been bad times.
One could probably say that about any country. We ought not overlook some of
the truly bad things that have happened, and we should perhaps believe that
many good things will happen in the future. Undoubtedly some bad things will
also continue to happen. That seems all too deeply embedded in human nature and
the history of civilizations.

So, what can or should I do to help bring about
those good things? In my professional life as an educational technology
researcher I might contribute to the development of tools, technologies and
techniques to help adolescents develop habits of inquiry and critical reasoning
that will serve them well as adults. In my personal life, I hope to offer my
family and friends support and comfort as they strive to live fulfilled lives. As
a responsible citizen, there may be little I can do to effect positive change
although there is much I would like to see happen. For example, in a democracy,
there should be at least one national election in which the basic principle of
one-person/one-vote is implemented, and that should be the election of the
national leader. I do believe in democracy but worry that we are drifting away
from basic democratic principles found in the Declaration of Independence: “We
hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they
are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these
are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” While I have some concerns
about the use of ‘men’ and ‘creator’ (I think the statement applies to all
persons regardless of any religious belief or orientation), I do not think it
applies only to members of a political party
or racial group or nationality. It says ‘all’ – not limited to those
with whom one agrees or whom one likes. ‘All’ is inclusive, as it should be.
The spirit of America is not about favoring a few or accumulating wealth or
putting one’s personal beliefs above all else. The spirit of America is not
about bullying others or taking whatever advantages one can for one’s own
benefit.

What I feel that I can and should do is promote
a spirit of belonging to a society that embraces diversity, that respects and
values differences, that is open and fair to all. My father once said that our
responsibility is to bring out the best in others. That is what I can and
should be doing. I would hope that people who occupy high offices in this
country and in others mentioned in this note would make that a top priority as
well.

I felt like I did not do a very good job last night with
your class. Perhaps these remarks may help (you can share if you think so):

This is an account of how research develops and may undergo
maturation along the way. About 10 years ago, I was working on a project in
Indonesia called Distributed Basic Education that was funded by the United
States Agency for International Development (USAID). The effort was motivated
by a law passed in 2005 that required all Indonesian school teachers to have a
four-year baccalaureate degree by 2015. At that time, only about 10% of
teachers had a baccalaureate and were certified teachers. The law meant that
millions of teachers would need to have the degree in just a few short years.
It was a very ambitious project – not a research project but perhaps a
development project of the 6.3 (demonstration) or 6.4 (large-scale
implementation) kind mentioned in class. I was working with the open
university of Indonesia – Universitas Terbuka (UT) – as that was the only place
that had the potential capacity to support large numbers of students required
for success. The enrollment at UT went from 350,000 to 650,000 in the first
year of our effort. I was responsible for developing methods, procedures,
examples, and standards for offering online courses and online support, about
which I had some experience. Unfortunately, the Internet failed to gain
widespread use in the five years I worked on the project so many of my efforts
were not realized in practice.

Meanwhile, I made many friends at UT and around Indonesia
and was asked to help them develop guidance for teachers working in rural,
multi-grade schools – something about which I knew almost nothing. Still, I was
willing to help and suggested starting with a visit to a representative rural,
multi-grade school – starting with an observation and descriptive work to gain
insights. Such a visit was arranged to a multigrade elementary school in the mountainous region
of Bogor. We left Jakarta in a couple of vans at 5:00 am – two American
researchers and four Indonesian teachers and an adminisrator from UT. We drove for 2 hours until
reaching an unpaved and barely navigable road and then drove for a half hour to
a village, where we disembarked. We then walked for 2 miles to a second village
where the three-room school was located. There was electricity (wired outside
buildings) but no Internet at all. The headmaster greeted us and served us tea
and three different kinds of bananas. He described the school, students and
teachers with one of our UT colleagues serving as a translator. He also asked
us about the bananas which were grown locally. I could not distinguish much
difference, but then he told us how very different they were and how each one
was best used in food preparation.

We then split ourselves into three groups – two for each of
the three classrooms. I was with an Indonesian UT colleague observing the 5th 6th
grade classroom. There were about 50 students in the room – about 25 in each
grade split into two sides of the room, with 3 students per desk that had one
note pad, one pencil and one straight edge. The instructor used a blackboard for notes; when addressing the 6th graders he faced that side of
the room while the 5th graders worked on a pre-assigned problem. The
6th grade students were studying science – biology and more
specifically plants – that day. The 5th grade students were studying
math – more specifically geometry that day.

I understood almost nothing of what he said to the 6th
graders. When he turned and spoke to the 5th graders, things became
slightly more understandable as he worked example geometry problems on the
blackboard which I could easily follow. Meanwhile, the 6th graders
were working quietly on their pre-assigned problems. The 5th grade
students were learning how to determine the perimeter of a polygon formed by
adding a right triangle to a rectangle. Solving the problem required knowing the
Pythagorean theorem – the square of the hypoteneuse of a right triangle is
equal to the sum of the square of the other two sides. This is not taught in
the USA until the 8th grade so I was a little surprised and somewhat
doubtful that those students could solve such problems. After working several
examples, the instructor turned and said something to the 6th
graders who got up and went outside. Then the 5th graders started
working on problems to determine the perimeter of a problem presented on the
blackboard. I went behind each group of 3 5th grade students and saw
them working in collaboration and with success solving the problem – much to my
amazement.

When I was satisfied that the 5th graders had
mastered the task, I became curious about the 6th graders. My
Indonesian colleague explained to me that their task was to find plants outside
that could regenerate by grafting. I went outside to observe what they were
doing. They were working in small groups (3 or 4 to a group) with one knife, finding and grafting plants. They were unsupervised. They were sharing and
collaborating and not fighting over the knife. Again I was amazed. This would
never be allowed in the USA.

At the end of the school day (around 3:00 pm or so), many of the parents came up from the fields and joined us in the school yard along with the
students and teachers. They asked us what we would recommend by way of
improving the school and the teaching. We had nothing to offer other than praise for
how well they were doing with so few resources. We then asked them about their
goals for the school. The parents said they wanted their kids to go on to
middle and high school – that meant a long bus ride to the city of Bogor and
not coming home except on holidays. I then asked how many go to further
education now – about 10% was the answer. How many of those 10% return to the
village – almost none was the response. What was their goal, I then asked. I
was told by several that they wanted at least 75% to continue their education.
I was surprised as that seemed ambitious but not unrealistic. I asked what
would happen to the three villages served by the school if they achieved their
goal. The parents simply shrugged in response – I pressed again asking if the
villages would survive if so many left and did not return. The answer was
a repetition of their desire to have their kids receive a good and
comprehensive education.

After we left and returned to Jakarta, we talked at length
about our experience. We decided to find out if it was an anomaly. We visited
two more multi-grade schools not so far away for shorter visits (extending the
descriptive and observational nature of that early research). We found similar
situations and then decided to recruit an American doctoral student to do her
dissertation studying a dozen rural, multi-grade elementary schools around
Indonesia. This was a kind of multi-case qualitative study aimed at determining
attitudes, quality of instruction, student learning outcomes, and related
matters. Along the way, it was learned that some multi-grade schools were being
discontinued but not all as many were in quite remote and undeveloped areas of
Indonesia. The research then took on a more interventionist nature (in our
recommendations) – how to train and support multi-grade teachers. The project
ended so we were not able to follow the effort as it matured, although the student's dissertation was successfully defended.

The point of this story is that research undergoes
maturation and having or being associated with a research stream can be
rewarding and may even yield positive outcomes and have an impact.

I remember Bob Gagné saying on many occasions that our task
is to help people learn. The task is not to help ourselves or our careers – as
educational technologists, the goal is to make effective use of technologies and
techniques to improve learning and instruction.

Thursday, September 14, 2017

I am at the Smart Learning Institute at Beijing Normal
University and visited NetDragon in Fuzhou while here. In various discussions,
I have arrived at the thought that learning systems of the future might become
organic as opposed to merely being adaptive to different learners. An organic
learning system would have two important characteristics, both of which involve
a developmental aspect.

\

First, an organic learning system would have the
ability to learn. This could occur through a process of examining large sets of
data about learners or subject matter and noticing patterns among the data;
when a pattern is identified, it could become a new rule in a relevant database
and used to guide and support subsequent learners and learning activities. An
organic learning system might then be said to mature and grow more intelligent
over time and with experience.

Second, an organic learning system would view learners
as developing individuals. What the system knows about learner X1 at
time T1 might not apply to that learner at a later time. The learner
might have developed new interests or changed majors and become engaged in
different outside activities, all of which could be used to customize learning
activities for that learner. An organic learning system, then, recognizes that
the primary users of the system are organisms that change over time. In recognition of that fact, an organic learning system would support learner choice and control with regard to what to learn, when, in what order to proceed, at what pace, and with which learning activities.

Well, it’s just a thought … I must add that I was
totally impressed by how Dejian Liu has created and organized an amazing work
environment at NetDragon (see, for example, http://netdragon.com/about/picture1.shtml).

Thursday, August 3, 2017

For a number of reasons, I have been thinking more
about the notion that it is important to think beyond oneself. It is important
not only for the sake of creativity and critical thinking. It is important for
the sake of developing a humanistic (other-oriented) perspective to guide what
one does.

When I reflect on my personal life and think about
things I regret doing, what comes to mind are instances when my actions and
decisions were guided by thinking about myself first. To avoid self-abasement,
I shall not offer examples as nearly all of them involve my children. Had I
been a better parent, I would have been putting my children first and foremost
all of the time.

When I reflect on my professional life and think about
things I regret doing, what comes to mind are instances when I was thinking
about my own welfare and values rather than those of others. Again, there are
many examples but those cases would be less flattering than I care to reveal in
a public blog. I imagine that every person could find both personal and
professional cases of thinking primarily about oneself first and not trying to
think beyond oneself. I also imagine that many of those cases might have
resulted in things that person regrets.

On the other hand, when I think about a very few cases when
I made an overt effort to think beyond myself, I find things in which I take
some pride. For example, I think about a comprehensive school reform quality
initiative project that I led with poorly performing rural K-8 schools in the
southeast. Normally, a project has a beginning and an ending, and that was the
case with the U.S. Department of Education project. However, a typical
educational project also involves service and support. The problem with so many
educational projects is that the service and support ends with the project.
This did not happen with one of the 8 schools involved in that effort. After
the project ended, I managed to invite a school representative to participate
in a smart education conference in Beijing, China. A year or so later, I gave
the school a 3D printer knowing that the innovative teachers there and the very
supportive principal would make good use of it. I am about to donate another
technology involving geography education some 6 years or so after the end of
that project.

Another example that comes to mind is the USAID Distributed
Basic Education project in Indonesia in which I participated for 5 years. That
project ended about 7 or 8 years ago. I have maintained contact with a number
of Indonesian educators ever since. I helped initiate the AECT Asia summer
research meetings based on the interest of Indonesians and participated in the
Educational Technology World Conference in Bali in 2016 co-sponsored by Indonesians
and AECT.

Those two examples are cases in which I managed to
think beyond myself and think about service to and support of others over and
above my own personal interests as an academic interested in publications or as
a principal investigator or co-investigator interested in funding. Things that
may begin as projects often involve service to and support of others. It is
important to remember that fact and make an attempt to ensure ongoing service
and support.

I have recently noticed a tendency of many, including
my students, to respond to complex situations and issues based on their own
rather narrow personal experience. This seems completely natural as we come to
have beliefs, habits, and predispositions based on our experience. However, the
nature of many complex situations and issues exceed things we have personally
experienced yet many still base their beliefs about those situations and
issues on personal experience that is somewhat removed from the problem or
situation being judged.

For example, with regard to online learning, someone
who has taken an online learning course might have experienced feeling that the
instructor was distant and perhaps aloof and not very involved in their
progress. Is that sufficient reason to conclude that many or most online
courses have instructors who appear distant, aloof and uninvolved to their
students? Perhaps not.

I have on occasion argued that the primary job of
being a teacher is to get students to have questions, which involves (a)
admitting that one does not know, (b) committing time and effort in searching
for a suitable resolution, (c) being open to alternative explanations, (d)
being willing to question one’s own assumptions, and (e) perhaps revisiting the
problem and explanation more than once.

I am now thinking that such an inquiry process is
basically learning to think beyond oneself – beyond one’s
personal and direct experience. I recall in high school when I was on the
debate team that part of the preparation was to argue both sides of an issue.
That seemed reasonable at the time. I remember learning in a college literature
course that there was a dramatic turn toward the self and writing in the first
person several hundred years ago, and that turn to the self impacted how stories
were told and what was told. At the time, I related that to Descartes’s cogito ergo sum or je pense, donc je suis – I think, therefore I am (or I exist). We
are after all thinking beings. Is it not remarkable that consciousness and
self-consciousness exist at all?

However, over-reliance on one’s beliefs and prior
experience can lead one to make many errors of judgment. I have made my fair
share, and now when I consider the ones that come to mind first, I notice that
my errors were due to an overconfidence in my own beliefs. I had a wrong-headed
confidence in the absolute truth of what I believed to be true, and many of
those so-called truths turned out not to be true.

Rather than further embarrass myself with true
confessions, I only wanted to point out that I have often believed more than I
could possibly have known. At an advanced age, I am just learning to think
beyond myself.

Monday, May 29, 2017

Like many others, I am very disturbed by the divisiveness
that now pervades American politics and characterizes America for many around
the world. Sharp divisions also exist in academia where many artificial
barriers have evolved that prevent academics from collaborating and learning
from each other; even worse, these barriers result in superficial thinking
about those not in one’s particular academic clique. Peter Goodyear has written
about such barriers calling those barriers false dichotomies.

I have wondered why they exist and persist in spite of
evidence that suggests such arbitrary divisions are misleading or unjustified.
My current thinking is that people have a natural tendency to simplify. There
is probably some survival value in simplifying (as in, “Was that sound I heard
in the bushes a bear or just the wind?” followed by a hasty retreat away from
the bushes … just in case). Simplifying is a natural tendency because
simplifying is linked to the notion of mental models and creating internal
representations in order to understand new or unusual phenomena (such a noise
coming from the bushes). A model – mental or otherwise – is necessarily a
simplification of that which is modeled. A model – mental or otherwise – is not
an exact replica. From the perspective of instruction, a model can help the
person viewing the model focus on that which is most relevant to a particular
task. From a learning perspective, a model also can be used to help a learner
focus and interact with that which is most relevant to a learning task. As I
have often said, Ludwig Wittgenstein remarked in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus that we “picture facts to ourselves”
(others call these mental models; see http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5740?msg=welcome_stranger).
While Wittgenstein argued for a correspondence theory of truth in that book (aligning
statements with observable facts), he failed to note that we also picture things
that are not acts to ourselves. This latter tendency seems to be increasing and
becoming more pervasive.

A description of something is a kind of text-based model and
is clearly not the same as that which is described. Wittgenstein’s later work
(e.g., Philosophical Investigations)
went beyond the strict confines of the Tractatus
in part because he realized that people have another remarkable ability. In
addition to being naturally able to create internal representations of things
experienced, people have a natural tendency to talk about some of those
internal representations. We engage in what Wittgenstein called language games
(see https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wittgenstein/).
Language games are rule-based and proceed based on the assumptions that those
involved know and generally follow the rules and conventions associated with
the language in that context, which is why Wittgenstein argued that it is the
use of language in a context that provides the meaning. Then meaningful
discourse can extend beyond the more narrow scientific structure presented in
the Tractatus. The following remarks
about love and hate fall into that extended territory opened up in Philosophical Investigations.

One of my philosophy professors at UT-Austin became an
advisor and later a friend and colleague. We hadmany discussions about all kinds of things
ranging from Bob Dylan to lacrosse to religion. He was Presbyterian and knew I
was Jewish. He knew my father was a Rabbi and often inquired about my religious
views. On one occasion, he characterized the fundamental difference between Christians
and Jews in the form of a single commandment. For Christians, the fundamental
commandment was “thou shalt love” – no restrictions – everyone, at all times.
He went on to argue that for Jews, the fundamental commandments was “thou shalt
obey” – based on his having read that there were some 613 commandments in the
Torah, which basically say that one should do that which God had prescribed in those 613 mitzvot (which refers to actions decreed
by God but is used more commonly to simply refer to good deeds).

While I recall the professor making that distinction, I do
not recall all of the details of the subsequent discussion. I did take
exception as I thought it was a misleading simplification for several reasons.
First, I do not know anyone who loves all others at all times. I only learned
what the emotion of hate was until years after that conversation, but I did know
at the time that there were people whom I did not love and that there had been people
whom I could not imagine loving. I also pointed out that one of those 613
commandments was essentially what Christians call the Golden Rule – it can be
found in Leviticus (Vah-yik-rah) 19:18 –
“love thy neighbor as thyself.” Rabbi Hillel’s version of that passage and
related passages in Leviticus is simple – that which is hateful to you, do not
do to others.

Then there is a question if a single statement or
commandment can characterize an entire religious perspective. I learned both
the power and the limitations of such a simplification. My professor said and
believed that anyone who was not acting on any occasion or in any circumstance
on the basis of love was not being Christian. He admitted that it was a goal
(loving everyone at all times in any circumstance) that no human could attain
while arguing that it was a worthwhile goal. I am not sure but I believe I
argued that understanding what that meant required many examples and
elaboration of cases, which is perhaps why there are 613 mitzvot.

So much for George Miller’s 7 +/- 2 rule about the limits of
short term memory. Even the basic 10 commandments exceed the memory capacity of
most persons according to Miller’s memory research. Can you recall all 10?

I recall one because the differences in translation are
fascinating. It is the sixth commandment (Low
Tirzach) – which in ancient Hebrew meant not to murder rather than not to
kill, according to the modern English translation of that commandment. I used
that distinction as my final rebuttal to my professor’s claim that loving vs.
obeying was what differentiated Christians and Jews. I argued that for
Christians, the challenge was never to kill anyone or anything at any time in
any circumstance. However, for Jews the challenge was never to murder another
person. He seemed to accept that differentiation, which is still an
oversimplification.

What brought back that conversation from more than 40 years
ago was the divisiveness that is so deep and so persistent in America and other
places. I recently had to admit to my kids – who are all adults now with
graduate degrees – that I think things are more deeply divided now than they
were when I, as an intelligence officer during the Vietnam
conflict, refused to carry a gun when sent to an air base in Thailand. I recall battling bumper
stickers from those days saying such things as “America: Love it or Leave” or “America:
Change it or Lose it.”

When one is overcome with hate, one loses oneself. My father
taught me that. When a country is overcome with divisiveness, it loses itself. That
is my worry in these troubling times.

About Me

I am a professor and former chair of Learning Technologies in the College of Information at the University of North Texas. I am a past-president of AECT, the editor of ETR&D, editor of the Handbook of Research on Educational Communications and Technology, organizer of the ICALT and CELDA conferences.